Robert Friedland, BHP and Bill Gates-backed I-ROX has its sights on initial commercial deployment of its game-changing rock-breaking technology by 2030. That road to commercialisation has a critical 2026 staging post in South Australia, where BHP is expected to pilot I-Pulse at one of its copper mines.
“We are collaborating closely with BHP on the development of the technology and testing various ores from the company’s copper mines in Chile and Australia,” an I-ROX spokesperson told InvestMETS.com.
“I-ROX is fortunate to have had tremendous interest from major mining companies and some of these have invested in I-Pulse. We regularly receive inquiries from other major operators in the mining industry who are interested to learn more about our unique technology.”
I-ROX was a standout in voting for this year’s Global Mining Technology Award for Best Start-up.
The Toulouse, France-based business has received about US$30 million of funding from investors since its formation in 2022. Major shareholder, Friedland’s I-Pulse, has been joined by BHP and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, founded by Gates.
“Simply put, I-ROX breaks rock,” Friedland said at this year’s Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A demonstration video showed ore from BHP-operated Escondida in Chile falling through a test column where proprietary pulse-power – fast and short high-voltage pulses – bursts the rock.
“Conventionally, we break rock by crushing it from the outside,” Friedland said. “When you burst it from the inside using a tensile force you can use up to 80% less energy than conventional grinding technologies. And so we’re able to take these large pieces of rock down to a very fine pattern, but we do so very efficiently.
“We can crack, fracture, drill and mine with that energy.
“By breaking rock along mineralogical boundaries we’re able to unlock more of the valuable metals that are trapped inside. We’re seeing this translate into up to 5% higher metal recoveries, which is incredibly valuable both in terms of the companies that are involved as well as the new metals that are needed for the energy transition.
“We have a better, cleaner and greener way to use electrical energy and it will change everything.”
Last year Wood Mackenzie said after researching I-ROX’s market opportunity and value proposition the I-Pulse technology could unlock more than $17 billion a year of supplementary value for the global copper industry. “The incremental value-addition is expected to come mostly in the form of operational cost savings [from] reduced mill energy consumption and mill consumables and increased revenue generation [from] increased mill process recovery),” Wood Mackenzie said. “Furthermore I-ROX’s pulse-powered technology targets tensile weakness in rocks, substantially reducing the time and energy involved in comminution, potentially resulting in about a 50% reduction in GHG emissions attributable to the milling process.”
I-ROX’s spokesperson said market opportunities for the technology were truly global.
“Wherever there is mineral mining there will be a need for this transformative technology,” he said.
“The mining industry contributes around 11% of global carbon emissions and consumes 3-5% of the world’s electrical energy for mineral comminution – a critical process in ore processing. These figures are set to grow as demand for raw materials increases to support the energy transition. With comminution accounting for up to 50% of a mine’s total energy use, more efficient, sustainable solutions is urgently needed.
“As declining ore grades drive up processing demands and energy costs rise even incremental improvements in comminution can translate into billions of dollars in savings and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, making it highly attractive to mining companies worldwide.”
I-ROX’s headcount has more than doubled to 22 over the past two years.
The company was a finalist in the 2024 Reuters Global Energy Transition Awards.
The investment by Breakthrough Energy Ventures had provided I-ROX with access to leading global investors in the climate technology community and the opportunity to attend events such as the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London, New York Climate Week and EIT Raw Materials Week in Brussels.
